Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Running in the rain.

I had another one of "those days" today. And I have to admit that I didn't fare so well. When Brian walked in the door at 6:30, I wanted to run for the nearest coffee shop with my laptop and a big huge nonfat pumpkin spice latte.

But I had an hour and a half run that needed to be attended to and Brian looked at me and said "Baby, you have to do this" so I just went.

I wasn't very happy about it. It was raining, getting dark, and I was just plain not in the mood to run. But halfway into that first mile, a switch flipped in my brain. The rain felt good on my skin and smelled amazing. I love the rain. It's calming. Relaxing. Serene.

Cooper settled into a nice little trot next to me and my legs just kept moving and before I knew it, I had run 3 miles and was to my halfway point. I tried not to focus too much on how far I'd come or how far I still needed to run to get home. I just focused on myself in that minute - how my legs felt, how my lungs felt, how my head felt.

And you know what? They were all fine.

So I kept going. Mile 5 was tough. I welcomed crosswalks where I had to wait to cross busy roads and took my time a bit getting across them. Then it was back to my steady pace. Mile 6 was tougher. I had to channel my hubby. I could hear him telling me to stay relaxed, breathe easy, and just let my legs do the work.

When I finally got home, I was so infinitely proud of myself. I had run 6.42 miles in 1 hour and 27 minutes. That's just over 13:30 minutes per mile. That, my friends, is super slow. But you know what? I don't care. I'm a work in progress. I ran my first 5K last spring at a 15 minute per mile pace, so I'm thrilled with 6.42 miles at 13:30 minute pace.

It's days like this that I have to remember when I just don't feel like going out.

1 comment:

Great job Kelli! So glad that you went out and did the run. It is usually those days when you don't want to go that you realize you really needed it. Congratulations on getting faster too!! That is awesome.